American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer denied bail after being charged with killing Canadian couple
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
For the first time ever, a flight delay has occurred on another planet due to bad weather.
The Ingenuity helicopter, which was slated to take to Martian skies on January 5, had to push its 19th flight back because of an unusually strong regional dust storm on Mars, according to NASA.
Now, the team anticipates that this flight will take place on Sunday, January 23.
While Mars is smaller and has a less dense atmosphere than Earth, the red planet still experiences the changing of the seasons and high winds, dust storms and ice clouds.
Orbiters circling the planet and instruments aboard missions like the Perseverance rover and InSight lander are helping scientists to better understand weather on Mars, but much like the uncertainty factor that meteorologists experience on Earth, forecasting weather on another planet is even more difficult.
Understanding weather and seasonal changes ahead of Ingenuity's flights has been crucial to the success of its previous 18 aerial forays. The little four-pound (1.8-kilogram) chopper has flown through spring and summer conditions on Mars, and autumn will begin on February 24.
As the seasons change, the air density goes through a cycle of ups and downs on Mars. Air density is one of two crucial factors when it comes to calculating favorable conditions for flight on Mars. Wind speed is the other factor.
Perseverance carries its own weather station called MEDA, or the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, to help NASA teams calculate air density and measure wind speed over the course of a day as well as how they shift through the progression of the seasons.
The arrival of autumn on Mars is known as the "dusty season" on Mars because it's when the amount of dust lofted in the atmosphere increases globally and remains this way through winter.
Dust is the greatest threat to Mars missions. A planet-encircling dust storm ended the Opportunity rover's impressive 15-year journey in 2019 by draining and preventing its batteries from recharging.
Dust in the atmosphere can decrease the amount of sunlight that reaches the solar panels powering missions like Ingenuity.
This lofted dust, which is heated by sunlight, also warms the atmosphere and reduces the air density even more.
The Ingenuity team was in for a surprise when an unusually strong dust storm cropped up in the Jezero Crater region on the first day of 2022, arriving well ahead of the dusty season.
"In fact, we have never seen a storm of this strength so early in the Mars year before," wrote Jonathan Bapst and Michael Mischna, members of the Ingenuity Weather and Environment Team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in an update.
Perseverance first spotted the approach of the January storm as dust lifted around the two robotic explorers in Jezero Crater.
From orbit, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observed an expanding regional dust storm moving from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere on Mars.
From the orbiter's perspective, it appeared that the storm may be heading for the crater and the two robots within it.
After a dust storm reduced the sunlight that could reach its solar panels, the InSight lander, which is more than 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) to the east of Perseverance, entered safe mode on January 7.
The team made the call to delay the flight, and it turn out they were right to do so. Just after they postponed Ingenuity's aerial hop, the dust storm passed over the crater. Perseverance's weather station reflected the changes caused by the storm.
The storm has since cleared and Ingenuity is once again preparing for flight.
The experience of this event has helped the helicopter's team to prepare for what to expect once the dusty season arrives. Storms that spring up during this time can morph into global storms that have swept across Mars in 2001, 2007 and 2018.
Above all else, the team wants Ingenuity to continue its history of safe, groundbreaking flights as it serves as an aerial scout for Perseverance on its journey to seek potential evidence of ancient life on the red planet.
Perseverance is troubleshooting its own issues right now in the form of some pesky stray pebbles that have prevented the rover from storing its seventh sample, collected initially on December 29. Ultimately, the rover may have to dump the current sample in the tube and attempt to collect another one from the same rock.
During Flight 19, Ingenuity will essentially continue a reversed version of its journey so far. Both Perseverance and the chopper are retracing their initial steps in Jezero Crater to begin the next phase of their joint adventure: exploring the remains of an ancient river delta that once fed into the lake that filled Jezero Crater more than 3 billion years ago.
Samples from the delta could help scientists better understand when water existed on Mars -- and if life ever existed on the red planet.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Health Canada will change its longstanding policy restricting gay and bisexual men from donating to sperm banks in Canada, CTV News has learned. The federal health agency has adopted a revised directive removing the ban on gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, effective May 8.
Nearly half of China's major cities are suffering 'moderate to severe' levels of subsidence, putting millions at risk of flooding especially as sea levels rise.
The judge presiding over the trial of a man accused of fatally running over a Toronto police officer is telling jurors the possible verdicts they may reach based on the evidence in the case.
A male columnist has apologized for a cringeworthy moment during former University of Iowa superstar and college basketball's highest scorer Caitlin Clark's first news conference as an Indiana Fever player.
Prince Harry, the son of King Charles III and fifth in line to the British throne, has formally confirmed he is now a U.S. resident.
Sophie Kinsella, the best-selling author behind the 'Shopaholic' book series, has revealed that she is receiving treatment for brain cancer.
Cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc says he plans to run in the next election as a candidate under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's leadership, amid questions about his rumoured interest in succeeding his longtime friend for the top job.
The United States vetoed a widely backed UN resolution Thursday that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.
While many people choose to keep their medical appointments private, four longtime friends decided to undergo vasectomies as a group in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.